Educating The Next Generation With Ceremonies, Rites Of Passage, Nature Immersion, Wilderness Survival & More

My name is Ben Greenfield and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, we are living in a world now that is very different than 30, 40 years ago when I was young. They're entering a world we maybe can't even fully comprehend.

We've put a lot of our chips in on this Nature Connection piece. Clearly, is there a risk? Yeah, but gosh, I mean, what's the opposite? We raise them with technology from birth. Is there a risk there? Absolutely. And would I be more worried if I had done that? Heck yeah.

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That's right. Twice before Ben.

Twice. I'm glad somebody's keeping track. So Tim, if you had heard his previous episode, you already know, has a last name, Corcoran. And Tim is a guy who I first met when he visited my home to walk me and my wife and sons through our new property in Spokane, Washington, to teach us what we could eat without dying. That's, I think, the best way I can sum it up. He walked us around and basically gave us a tour of all the wild edible plants on our land, what we could do with them, and how we could implement them in our wild plant menu. From organization grape to wild mint and nettle and all sorts of goodies, all the way down to dandelion that grow on our property. And he did such a great job teaching that I later got super interested in the fact that he puts on wilderness survival and nature immersion camps and clinics right here in Spokane and the surrounding area in North Idaho. My sons, I think, gosh, what were they, like six or seven when they first started working with you? Tim?

Yeah, I think it was about six years old. Yeah.

Yeah. And Tim has been one of their key mentors through his Twin Eagles Wilderness School and also through some one on one work that he's done with my sons to bring them through a wilderness awareness course called Kamana. And you may have also heard me talk about how sometimes river and Taryn and I go off and do these father son wilderness survival camps, which are epic and one of the, I think, the most meaningful bonding experiences I've ever had with them. And those are also through Tim's Twin Eagles Wilderness School, where he facilitates deep nature connection mentoring and cultural restoration and inner tracking, and even does things like wilderness vision quests for adolescents and for adults. And so my own sons have been going through their rites of passage under the tutelage and guidance of Tim. So it's been fantastic to get to know Tim over the past few years, but I've never had Tim's. I first met Tim's wife when she was making us just amazing, luxurious camp food out at Medicine Circle. And her name is Janine and she is also on the call with us today. So welcome, Janine.

Thank you.

Janine kind of works hand in hand with Tim. Probably keeps him out of trouble a little bit like my wife does for me. Oh, yeah. And between Tim and Janine, they are the parents of two sons themselves who they have raised in, I would say, a very outside the box way and in a way that really fosters deep nature connection. I think this whole idea of fostering a deep nature connection, especially in our youth, a deep nature connection that goes particularly beyond VR headsets and churning out school essays, using ChatGPT and spending copious amounts of time on TikTok, is something that's pretty important in this day and age for creating a creative, free thinking, resilient young human being who actually is fully equipped to go out and change the world and also to appreciate everything that this great earth has to offer beyond screens. So, Tim and Janine, welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having us, Ben. It's great to be here.

Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. And one of my reasons, the prime reason for getting you on is you guys were featured in my parenting book, Boundless Parenting. You had a whole chapter there and just went into vision crests and rites of passages and nature connection, everything that you do with your sons. And so I want to get into some of that stuff and just open up a discussion about how we can foster nature connection not only for ourselves, but also for our children. And just for those of you listening in, I'm going to put show notes for everything that we talk about, including my previous episodes with tim@bengreenfieldlife.com Corcorans C O R C O R A N S Tim and Janine's last name BenGreenfieldLife.com Corcorans now tell me about your sons. And this is one of those marriage counseling ventures where both of you being on the podcast at the same time, you guys get to elbow each other and choose who gets to reply to which question. But go ahead, whoever wants to start, tell me about your sons.

Okay. Well, we have two sons. Their names are river and Forest, and River is 16. Forrest is 13. So they're now fully officially teenagers. And what can I say? They want to get going on things like they always. They really don't want to sit around. They want to live life fully. That's what I've noticed about them. And I think there's been a foundation of their childhood like that, too, of just living life to the fullest, finding, you know, and discovering adventure. And so what can I say? Parenting feels a little bit like a side hustle. Like they're always. They're always busy.

You guys have had a very unique method of educating them. And I realize that this is a question that could go all sorts of places, but tell me about how you've raised your sons, particularly in the way that what one might call their schooling has been different.

Yeah, I mean, I think we can both speak to this, Ben, as a background and probably a foundational element to their education. We really view education very differently, I think, than the modern adult here in the United States. We don't see education as something that happens in a building that you go send your kids off to and then it's done at 3 o' clock or whatnot. We really hold that life is one great journey of learning. We consider ourselves lifelong learners and have intentionally raised our sons to be lifelong learners. So as such, from the very beginning, from pre birth even, we were very intentional about the educational process that they were going to go through. So as a background piece, right. Janine and I, we started Twin Eagles Wilderness School here in Idaho in sandpoint. That was 2005. River was born, born in 06. So we actually started the school a year before our first son was born. And it's not just about creating classes as you know, but for our listeners it's not just about classes you go to and you go and then it's you learn what you learn and you come back. But our effort has really been to create a conscious community and build long term relationships. We know that some people are going to come and go, but we also know that some people would come and stay. And many people have, including you guys, your whole family. And so over the years these relationships deepen. Right. I mean, I have some kids I've mentored for, we've mentored for 15 plus years.

I've run into some of them, by the way, as helpers or whatever you want to call them at the camps. My own sons are now starting into some of your mentoring for being teachers. And they're just, they're different people. And I want to give you a chance to keep going on how you educated your own sons. But yeah, it's just this, this maturity and gentleness and patience and mindfulness that you don't see a lot in kids these days. It's very interesting to see 16, 17, 18 year old man or woman, a young man or woman who's gone through your program and been educated using a lot of these nature based methods. They're just different people in a good way. So yeah, I'm right there with you.

And it's so funny because we get a lot of parents, a lot of moms frankly, who are like, oh my God, where do you find these? Mit, where do you find these, these Teenage helpers at your programs, like, can I hire them to be my babysitter? We get that a lot. And I'm always kind of chuckling. I say, no, you don't understand. We didn't find them. We helped guide them to. We made them. I mean, I'm a humble man. There's obviously a lot of other influences on these individuals besides just Jeanine and I, far outside of twin eagles. But we have had an influence. And so what happens, right, Ben, when you get a whole community of these people? What happens when you've got teenagers like this? What happens when you've got young adults, when you've got families, when you've got adults, other kids, kids, elders, and those people all have a long standing relationship. Suddenly we're bringing back the essence of village, right? We're not living in a small village with 150 people, but we are bringing these relationships back. And so we did that intentionally to form a foundation within which our sons could be raised. The vision was that from birth they could come up with that kind of community surrounding them. So back to your question about education. We hold that a cultural context is really the ultimate education. And yes, on top of that, we still had to deal with core competencies like math, English, history, et cetera. So maybe I'll let you, Janine, speak to that because you've really taken that side on with homeschooling and unschooling.

Well, I'll just add something though, Ben, to what you said. You said just a few minutes ago, you said, we made them. And what I wanted to respond to with that is the idea that culture is going to happen whether we like it or not, whether we plan for it or not, or schedule it or intend for it, culture is just going to happen. So when we started raising our sons, we decided we wanted to intentionally craft culture around them rather than just say, well, you know, wherever we go, culture is just kind of happening. We're kind of at the whim of it. Instead, we decided to craft culture around them.

What did that look like from an early age when you started them into one might call school? Did you guys have a mix of books and nature time? Was it time spent with elders or what did it look like? Exactly. And we have time for you to go into the nitty gritty details if you want to.

Actually, I was just meeting with a family yesterday and we were discussing this very thing about inputs. Okay? So when I, when I look at any learner, but in particular my sons, I started with this knowledge that I need to be clear on what their inputs are. And when I say inputs, I mean, what are they sensing, what are they seeing, what are they hearing? What information are they taking in? There's lots of different ways that they do take in information and receive inputs. And so I was very clear starting out, both of us were very clear that their inputs would need to be nature oriented. So it's not a moral issue here about whether something is good or bad. You know, it's just about choices. And so we chose choices. Like, for example, a book. I was just talking with his family yesterday about the types of books that, that my sons were raised on. And one of them happens to be a book all about waterfowl. And there's no words. There's no words in the book. It's only. It's a picture book. And they loved this book probably till like they were 10. Okay, we read this book a lot, and it wasn't even something we read because it didn't have words. We read the pictures and then they could interpret it themselves. You know, that's classic, like board book type stuff. But this wasn't actually a board book. It was more like a magazine. And there was tons of pages and every single picture, picture was an illustration accurate of all the waterfowl species of where we live. So they're not just taking in these kind of random, inaccurate pictures of like ducks and birds and, and things like that. They're actually seeing detailed pictures of great blue heron when they're little kids and like red winged blackbirds and different kinds of ducks, like mallard ducks and whatnot. And so they're patterning on that over and over again. And they're actually gaining knowledge of place as they're growing. And so that, that's an input that's worth preserving and continuing because they may not even realize it, but as they're getting older, they now have a knowledge of all the beings that live around them.

And Fast forward, Ben, 10 years or five, 10 years. They're both now skilled birders that are active in the community. They love birding. I mean, they are obsessed with birds. They know every single species, you know, four or five hundred plus species, how to identify them by song, by sight, from up close, from a distance.

Is that what it means to be a birder? I probably would have failed the quiz if you would have asked me without telling me, because I think of a, you know, like holding a hawk with a glove and setting it off. But I think that's called what, falconry, Something like that.

That's Falconry.

Yeah. Okay, so it's not falconry. What's birding?

Birding is the study of birds. It's the study of all the different species of birds. It's tracking which birds are present at which time of year, what seasonal differences are there, all of the natural history and the biology of birds. It's a whole thing. I mean, there's most birders out there, frankly, I think, statistically are older. Right. Oftentimes, retired folks get into birding. It's a significant and sizable passion that a lot of folks have out there.

Now, does that include bird language? I think you were telling me maybe it was your son river actually speaks bird language.

I wouldn't quite put it that way.

Okay.

But yes, bird language is something that we teach at Twin Eagles. And it's the idea that the sounds that birds make in the wild are not random, which they're not. They're communicating to one another. It doesn't translate they like in a spoken human language. Be sure, Ben, you can be 100% sure those birds are tracking all of the predators, all of the hazards, food sources, weather conditions, where their shelter is. And if you can imagine all of the birds singing, it's actually one giant, elaborate, complex alarm system that's in three dimensions happening constantly in the wilderness. So if you have a bobcat coming through on the prowl, hunting for lunch, all those ground birds are gonna. Through their movement and their sound, they're gonna announce bobcat's presence if they know bobcat is there. And if you know those birds and what their sounds sound like when things are normal or what we'd call baseline, you'll also be able to recognize, oh, my gosh, when an event happens, an alarm, when they're alarming about the presence of bobcat, you'll know that. And the old story, as the old story goes, you know, we can oftentimes predict animal predator presence a minute or two prior to their arrival based on hearing bird sounds. And people will freak out. They'll think, oh, my God, are you psychic? You know, and I was like, no, I'm just paying attention to patterns, just like any other learning process as a matter of understanding patterns. Right. So that, too, has been a big passion for River.

So I think to consolidate, though, I'll just say it's not that river can speak bird language, it's that he can interpret it.

Yeah.

And he has. You know, he's not a master at it by any stretch of the imagination, but he definitely can interpret it. And when I talk about creating A culture around them. And you know, how they were raised in kind of on schooling. Just as an example would be we would have these maps and we'd keep them in the corner of a room and river would come in. And we never said anything about the map, okay. And the map had on it tracking all the birds. The time that they made communications, that they communicated something, they made a noise or a sound or an alarm or a companion call or a song or whatever it is. And you know, we've got all the initials of all the birds. Like American Robin has the initials A.R. if you look in a field guide, he just happens to come by, happens to meaning, like it's. It seemed just random, but like the poster was always there. And when he finally discovered it, he was like ready in the right place to see this map. And he said, what's this? And he pulled out the map and he started to ask all these questions because he knew all the codes of these birds, like AR and grape heron and so on and so forth, right? And so then I said, oh, very casual. I said, oh, you know, this is a map. We're tracking all the bird language that's happening. And the best time to do it is, you know, we get up at like before dawn, we get in place and we see it and then we map it all out. Well, so that was it. And then the next day, without saying anything, him and his brother were up at like 5 or 5:30 in the morning and they were gone. And I did. I had no idea. And then by the time they came back, I got up and I see that they're not even there. And then when I came back, they had out a flip chart and they're mapping out their own experience of it. And I didn't tell them to do that. So that's kind of the idea of where passion based learning meets unschooling meets culture is created. You know, we create the conditions for culture to occur.

Yeah.

You know, we create the conditions for learning to occur by just setting up peripheral features, which is kind of like culture, you know, a contained experience and the conditions therein. He just tapped into it and now he's like taking his learning to the next level and he's doing it without just nothing but like a mere paper. That was kind of like the power of suggestion that sent him off to do it. Does that make sense? So just want again to give you a picture of what that unschooling could look like. And this could happen with any kind of subject.

And then I'll Just add briefly and let you respond here, Ben. But of course, it wasn't just maps in the corner. That was part of it. And, yeah, there were field guides and there were journals and kimono journals and everything else, but there were also all of these people surrounding him who also loved bird language, who also loved tracking animals, who loved making fire by friction, who loved harvesting wild plants. We intentionally surrounded them with people who cared, who were passionate about all these elements of nature. So, of course, that was their input back to Jeanine's point. So, of course, they got to find out what their passions were, you know, and they've gotten really into birding. They've gotten really into hunting. One thing they haven't gotten so much into might have been, let's say, animal tracking. That just hasn't been a particularly big passion. And that's fine. We knew that we wanted to surround them with lots of possibilities holistically, so that they could identify what are their hearts on fire about and then support them in that journey.

But when he found the map, he did ask, like, who made this map? And then we told him. And of course, he knew who those people were, because these people had seen river grow up.

You say in the book that. I think the way you phrased it was all the books and games and toys that they started off with from early childhood were from nature or nature focused. And that got me thinking, like, what about, like, math or logic or something like that? Like, was it literally, like, every single thing that you guys used for them from an early age was pretty much like, that was your metric. It had to be something from nature pretty much.

I mean, I wouldn't say it was rigid, but I'll give you an example. Like, we had. We definitely had many math lessons where we'd go to the beach. I knew that there was, like, a sandbar space where there's sand. They'd had. They go out, they would collect sticks and driftwood, and then we would literally write out equations on the sand with it. Or they would use the sticks. You know, if you're saying two multiplied by four and then you have a line under the four, and then you write the answer. They would have to write it out in sticks. So they're using their whole body. It's a kinesthetic activity. You know, you're not just sitting there writing on a paper, which is fine. And as they get older and they do more complex math, they are doing that now, actually.

Right.

But they had a foundation of this.

Particularly, I would say, Ben, prior to the age of seven, you know, seven and younger, we really recognized as incredibly formative years where the inputs are having a very significant effect on the child's brain, on their whole being, as they develop. So we were pretty idealistic, I think, at that phase, and really pretty strong about trying to just maximize nature input and minimize, I don't know, technology, for example. But yeah, I mean, by the time they were, I don't know, even 10 or 11, right, Janine? I mean, they had math books and they were doing standard math problems on pencil and paper as well. So it's not like it was a crazy. Seen the way you might be imagining. But yeah, those first seven years, we really did our best to surround them with a lot of nature inputs.

Interesting. Related to this idea of what you did with them from an early age. One thing that you say that we didn't get into a lot of detail about it in the book, but it really caught my attention and I wanted to perhaps hear you clarify what this meant. You said that when they were born, they had a welcoming of life ceremony. Now, I know you guys are super into ceremony because every time we've done wilderness survival camps, it starts and ends with a special ceremony. When we went and picked up our sons from their rite of passage, there was a ceremony, there was an opening ceremony when we left them and kissed them goodbye, and then a closing ceremony. And they had another ceremony after that separate from you guys, friends and family, feast and giving away. And so I know you guys are big on ceremony, which I really respect, but what's particularly the welcoming of life ceremony at birth that you did?

The welcoming of life ceremony. And we spoke about this in the book, but it's one of many different rites of passage that meet an individual's need as they grow and mature through life. So just for a little context, like a rite of passage would be some sort of a ceremony or ritual that marks the shifting of the major life phases. So we're talking about what? Birth, childhood, adolescence. Adulthood, maybe parenting or marriage in there, and then becoming an elder and then death. Like, that's less than 10 major life phases that we each have. And so when you look at all the old cultures, and for those who don't know, Janine and I have been really blessed to have a lot of traditional Native American and indigenous mentors, which greatly influenced us and as well as all of our life's work. But if you look at the old cultures, Ben, you see that these old rites of. These rites of passage were of course, present. Now when the modern person of course, rites of passage are very rare these days. And when we do hear the word, it's either misunderstood or maybe it's connected with the adolescent rite of passage. Right. Like the classic 13 year old ROP. But really a rite of passage is just any major ceremony to mark the transition between any major life phase. So a welcoming of life. So really we might have, if we were really living in a holistic culture, we might have seven or eight rites of passages to mark the seven or eight major life phases that we go through. So the welcoming of life was the very first one. And the welcoming of life ceremony involves, you know, it's about connecting with spirit. It's about connecting with that thread of something that's actually meaningful and is outside the realm of the mind or even the heart, but really, ultimately the spirit. And although of course, it's connected with the heart. And so the welcoming of life ceremony involves bringing people together ceremony to acknowledge the birth of the child. Spiritually speaking, it's an opportunity to welcome the spirit of the child into the child's body and to bring all that together. When our sons were born, gosh, there was a lot of synchronicity. You know, one of the ways, you know, a ceremony is going well is synchronicity happens. Right?

What do you mean? Yeah.

So, for example, when I remember when Forrest was born, we were living at Cedar Springs where we had the school for a lot of years. And as part of that welcoming of life ceremony, I remember taking him and holding him up, going outside and holding him up. Kind of a Lion King moment, you know.

You got to do the music, though, Tim. Hi, Hanya.

And presenting him to the world. And in that moment, no kidding, two things happened. First, a couple of white tailed deer popped up from the ferns, I don't know, 50 yards away. And they looked over, and then at that same moment, a barred owl called out in the forest back behind our place. And it was eerie. I mean, I was like, hairs were going up on the back of my neck. And, you know, it's a feeling thing. But the feeling was all of nature, all of life is witnessing his birth. They're helping welcome him. A barred owl is announcing it to the entire forest. And from that point forward, what was really interesting, Ben, was that Forrest had this very strong connection with owls and still does to this day. Like he can spot them and knows where they are when others don't. And it's kind of this uncanny connection that he's got that's a little hard to explain. River had his own version of that. Right? That was one element of it.

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Yeah. So the right of competence confidence is acknowledging that a child has one foot but still in childhood and kind of like at the hearth, in the nest, but they're stepping out, and they are acknowledged for things that they can do. So when our sons went through this ceremony, we acknowledged, hey, you can get dressed all by yourself. This is a big deal, actually. You can ride your bike now on your own, successfully and safely and responsibly, and you can help out around the house. So you are now just getting your foot into this space of. I'm just starting to be a contributor, and I'm an important, needed part of this whole family unit and matrix. You know, when we did that, it was really, really important that we had somebody else lead and facilitate it, though, because we need to have space to just be the parents. So I went to our son's two most important, like, key primary people outside of their parents. And for my son, river, it was for his kindergarten teacher, and. And at the time, he went to a kindergarten, and I went to her, and I explained to her, hey, he's emerging in more responsibility. He's a helper around the house. And I sat down with her and talked to her about the design of this ceremony, and I said, hey, would you be the master of ceremonies for this? And I pretty much handed her the design, and then I had her over, so it appeared to everybody like she was the one who was gonna take this over. And then everybody said, okay, this is great, and she led it. I stepped away. You know, again, it's like crafting culture, but I don't need to be at the center of it. So I stepped out, and she stepped in, and she led the whole ceremonial process. Similarly, for our other son, it was his adopted grandfather, Dave, And Dave came in and led an entire ceremony, and we just were the parents. It's been intentional from the beginning that they'd have other people around them doing it. And then the actual ceremony is them going through a process of mindfulness with themselves. And then they come back to all the solo time. Yeah, they had a little bit of solo time. Like, for one of them, it was a spot in nature by themselves. For the other one, it was just being in a teepee. And their grandfather, Dave, he asked Forrest questions to just consider in his heart. That's what I heard him say. In your heart. I'd like you to feel these questions. And then he'd come back to the circle, and he would share from those questions. And what was really cool about Forrest's ceremony was after he had this alone time, he returned, and there was a fire. We were all around a fire. And Dave led this process wherein Forrest's most special special childhood toy was put into the Fire. It was this little book that we had must have read, like, 50 times or 100 times. It felt like just every day we'd read this book. And even the older brother was sad to see the book go into the fire. Like, wow, he's not just a little boy anymore. Like, now he's getting to be a bigger boy. We're acknowledging that. And when these ceremonies are over, I noticed river has said several times, like, when are we gonna do the next ceremony? Like, when can I do the next one? And so that acknowledgement, it's not just like, good job. You're doing a good job. It's actually an acknowledgement. Like, we see you emerging and you're growing and. And it's not even, like, through words. It's like we're all just showing up for you. And I say in these invitations to people, it's an incredibly vulnerable feeling to ask people to show up for your kids.

And that idea of bringing others in, too, I mean, it does take a little bit of trust as a parent, like, just to bring my own flavor to this. When we brought river and Taryn out for their rite of passage and kind of said goodbye to them, and they got marched off with blindfolds off into the. The wilderness, and we basically couldn't be there with them. My wife and I, we did a rough time. I mean, there was like four days where we. I think slightly longer than that, where we hadn't heard from them, and we had no clue where they were, and we were nervous, and my wife was crying. And it's different than, I don't know, bringing your kids to basketball camp and, you know, you can call in and call out and zoom Skype at the end of the day or whatever, turning over your children into the hands of someone else, whether it's an elder or a mentor or someone like that. I mean, I guess people kind of sort of do that when they drop their kids off at school for eight hours a day and then assume at the end of the day the educational process is done, which I think could be kind of a mistake. But it seems like there's something different about it when it's actual ceremony or rite of passage and you're just trusting someone else to take the reins.

I think what it's about, I kind of imagine it like you're taking your most precious little caterpillar and you're gonna go, hence, just drop it into this cocoon space with other people who are going to like, tend to it, you know, and take care of it. And it would be presumptuous to say that we know what the caterpillar is going to turn out to be, like, when it comes out. But there is this process of sitting in the waiting room and waiting for that emergence to happen. And it does take a lot of trust and patience and surrender and letting go for that process and really trust for that process to say, like, oh, my goodness, this caterpillar is gonna come out. We don't know. It would be so kind of funny and scandalous to say, we know what it's gonna look like, but we have to wait.

Yeah. Their middle childhood, you had another rite of passage, and I think that one involved some kind of a hunt, right?

Yeah. This was, I think, a less formal one. But as we talk about in the book, procuring food directly from nature is a big value for us. I mean, talk about. Part of the work is always to consider for us is what structures do we have in place that are going to facilitate connection. So from an early age, we modeled harvesting wild foods, going out for morel mushrooms, or harvesting nettles in the springtime, or even just contributing to a garden salad with wild dandelions or chickweed. Right. And so I got into hunting when the boys were little. I wasn't raised with hunting, but I got into it when the boys were little. My dream for a lot of years was actually to hunt with a bow and arrow. But between running the school and being a dad and being a husband, it was just too much. So I decided I was gonna start hunting with a gun. And although it wasn't my ultimate ideal, what it did was, of course, it allowed me to bring deer home. And, oh, my gosh, in those early years, you should have river and forest would get so excited when I would leave, and then, of course, when I would come back, and they'd always want a big update. When's dad getting back? Did he get a deer? Did he get a deer? And when I would bring a deer back, oh, my gosh, super excited. And they would want to be there, and they'd want to help with skinning it and butchering it and learning everything they could about this animal. You know, they'd play with the deer's feet and compare it in their mind's eye with the tracks they've seen previously in the sand. Right. When they were, I don't know, nine or ten. Right. This natural passion started to emerge. Well, gosh, when could I hunt? And so first, of course, it was with River. And so we got him a bow. And he had had a bow for a lot of years. Actually it was his uncle, his adopted uncle Daniel who gave him his first bow. So again, culture. And river was very excited. You know, we have snowshoe hare here in rabbits right here in Idaho. And river was really excited and he wanted to know, okay, so what do I have to do? Well, I created this whole preparatory pathway. I said, well, you've got to think about how close are you going to be? So first, how close can you get to one of these animals? And he would spend days and days and weeks and weeks sneaking up stalking on snowshoe hare. And he found that he could get within about 15ft feet of them. Much closer, they'd run off. I said, okay, Your range is 15ft. Now you've got to get accurate with a bow and arrow on a target at 15ft and be successful. You know, to hit the vitals of a snowshoe hare, which is only maybe a 4 inch diameter circle at 15ft, 50% of the time or better. Like that feels like ethical hunting to me.

Right? Yeah.

So then he starts practicing. I'll tell you what, Ben, I mean, it was months and months and months of practicing. But you know, he wasn't just practicing for the fun of shooting a bow and arrow. Of course it's a fun thing to do. He was practicing because he knew this was the step he had to make before he was going to be allowed to hunt. So sure enough, he got his shot down. And that, you know, that takes time. That's not easy to hit a 4 inch target half the time or better.

I know I practice a lot with my own sons to prepare them. We're preparing for a march hunt for access to right now.

Exactly right.

Hawaii and typically a couple months prior. It's 12 to 15 hours a day, every, every day. A lot of intention put into it to another great father son bonding activity. But just like we're doing breathwork every day right now to prepare for a spearfishing trip we're going on in May. Like that journey of practice leading up to some type of rite of passage or ceremony or scary thing. I kind of sort of got a taste of that when I was, I'd race ironman triathlon, right. And I'd have months and months of preparation, Swimming and biking and running and fueling and studying the course and the dynamics and the elevation and the topography of the race. And it's just kind of like that journey to the finish line starts. So Far prior. And for a young man or a young woman, having those certain spots built in intentionally throughout their upbringing that they have to practice for, they have to be ready for, both mentally and physically and even spiritually. It's so important and goes way beyond just be ready for your math quiz on Friday or whatever.

And so you can imagine, right, like, in the moment when he finally did shoot that snowshoe hare, it was incredible. I mean, I still remember that moment. And he had, like, tears. It was this whole emotional mix of, like, incredible pride and happiness that he. His goal and then deep sadness that this beautiful rabbit had died, you know, that he really cares about those hair. He'd seen those hair for his whole life. And then when he came back, he processed the hide, he processed the meat. Shane, you helped him. And he made a beautiful snowshoe hare stew and then brought people together. And we did a giveaway, which you mentioned earlier, which is again, a traditional part, kind of the ending portion of a rite of passage where you bring people together. The person is going through the rite of passage, and they say, I'm gonna feed you. I'm gonna give you gifts as my way of saying, thank you for seeing me. Thank you for helping to raise me to this point in my life. So that's what he did. And he gave the whole. He didn't keep any of that first, no shoe heron. It was really hard. But there's such a value in there of the give and take, the reciprocal nature with the earth, with community, with spirit.

Yeah, I love that. It's so cool to weave this type of activity in. And you and I, when we podcasted last time, Tim. And again, for people listening, if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com Corcorans C O R C O R A N S. You and I, Tim, talked about the rite of passage into adolescence and rites of passage into adulthood and even vision quests. And so I would encourage people to listen to what goes on after maybe that middle adolescence rite, because we already talked about a lot of that, and we won't necessarily need to revisit that. But I do want to talk about some other traditions and habits and routines and rituals that I thought were really interesting and unique that you guys do. You talk a lot about how you spend regular time together as a family outside in nature, as a key part of your. Your children's upbringing, obviously a big part of their education as well. And that a lot of that is wildlife tracking and knowledge of wild, edible and medicinal plants and wilderness survival skills and like, you mentioned birding and harvesting huckleberries and morel mushrooms. And then the archery that you talked about, the training in the early archery. But then you mentioned that you have this annual tradition of an ancestor supper. What's the annual ancestor supper?

That's an annual coming together, recognizing our ancestors, feeding them. So what we do is we create dishes that our ancestors ate. And one example of that is just a simple dandelion salad. So Tim's dad had a great great grandparent who went out and foraged for dandelions and would make a salad just with a simple vinaigrette. And river and forest would write their grandfather a letter to find out, hey, what did our great great grandparents eat? So then he would write a letter back. This is just, like, through snail mail. And he would tell them the exact recipe and how she ate it and what she would do and who she was. And then that one year from getting that information, they went out, they gathered dandelions, and then they made that salad, and we ate it that night. And then we'd acknowledge her. And, like, for that particular time, I remember we still have that letter. We put the letter on a little altar, like, yeah, this was her. And he had photocopied. Their grandfather had photocopied a picture of her in this letter. So we put the picture there, too. And before we eat, we make a plate, and we put a little bite of each one of these dishes, and we put it on that plate, and we call it the first bite. And we feed them first. And so on this altar, we might light a few candles, we have photos of them. Maybe a special object that they had that got passed to us. And then we put the plate there so that they are joining us, eating with us, you know? And there are other cultures who have these ancestor suppers. They're called, like, ghost suppers and things like that. And they'll even go so far as to put fabrics over all the mirrors in the house. Cause they say, wow, you know, we don't want those spirits to come in and, like, catch themselves seeing themselves in the mirror, you know? So, I mean, we don't go that far because, like, that's not our culture. But just to recognize these are powerful rituals of connecting with those who came before you and knowing, like, one day you're gonna be one of those people, too. It's developing a relationship with death and life and what it takes to feed, you know, life that is necessary in order to feed death, and death that feeds life, you know, that whole cycle. So that's a little bit about that ritual that we have.

And if I can just jump in, right? So then you imagine a gathering with maybe 30 people, and there's 20 different dishes representing 20 different sets of ancestors. And each person's got a story, each person's got that special dish. Everyone brings a picture of the ancestors, and we put them all together in front of the fire. And, you know, when you bring that kind of intention and that kind of effort together, magic happens, right? And it was really interesting for me. Ben, we've been doing the ancestors supper.

For a lot of years.

And in the early years, you know, we didn't have as many ancestors. As we've gotten grown older, we've been doing this work for 20 plus years. People have died. And, you know, at first there was a couple people in the community that passed away and we would add their pictures. But I'll tell you what, man, last year my mom passed away, and that was a huge, huge thing for me. And after that, when I put out those little spirit plates, you know, those, those first bites, and we do things like ancestor supper, the amount of meaning is, like, skyrocketed. I mean, I'm almost choking up right now thinking about it, honestly. But to know that, like, I do believe my mom's spirit is still out there. Yeah, she passed away. But I do believe in this connection. When I honor the ancestors in that way, it's taken on a whole new meaning. And river and Forest experienced that, and Janine does, and our whole community does. So as I've matured through the years, this one has just taken on increasingly meaningful layers of depth for me.

Yeah, I think in intentionally talking about death, too, what we've done with river and Terran is we've all written down and planned out in the family constitution, our memorial service, our funeral, our end of life directives, and our end of life wishes all the way down to the what kind of food do we want at the memorial service? What kind of music? What are people going to be wearing? What will the emotions be like? Happy and joyful, you know, somber and reverent. And so they've all had a chance to sit down and map that all out, as well as an obituary writing exercise. And, you know, this idea of thinking forward to one's death, of course, is not only meaningful as far as creating a more reverent appreciation for the passing of life and also for elders in young people. But I think that it also helps with purpose, like the understanding, oh, life is temporary. Is my time today best going to be spent on Minecraft or on using my God given skills to create art that's going to inspire someone or make them laugh today.

I really appreciate you bringing this up because honestly, there's a lot we're competing with. And I'm not actually saying that those things like Minecraft are necessarily bad, but you know, again, it's all about just choices of where we want to put our focus. Right. And so just as an example, this past fall when we were going to do ancestor supper, our one son really wanted to go trick or treating. You know, he's, he's had that for the past couple years. We wouldn't always do this, actually engage in that. So my other son said, well, aren't we going to do ancestor supper? And I said, oh, it's kind of tough to compete with Halloween, you know, maybe we just won't do it. I said this to my son and he said, well, you know, mom, it's okay because we actually eat a lot of these foods year round. My 16 year old said this. And so we can do ancestor supper any night we want, actually. Like, it doesn't have to be on this one night. And that was profound for me to hear because it made me realize, like, oh, yeah, you know, if you think about it generationally, that is how it worked. I mean, you're eating generations upon generations of ritualistic meals every day, you know, and the stories that are in those foods gathered and whatnot. So for him to just have a glimpse into that and realize, yeah, we can do the first bite any night. We can serve the things we've forged that we know our ancestors foraged for any night of the week, we could do that.

Yeah.

It kind of takes on a different meaning. You know, ritual isn't just an annual thing anymore. It's a way of living.

Yeah, yeah. Now you have this annual ancestor supper. But then you also have, I think you describe in the book as a weekly family night. Now we're big into family dinners at our house. I've talked about this on podcasts before. Our long family dinners with board games and card games and laughter and song and a lot of intention brought into family dinner. But the weekly family night for you guys, what does that look like?

Well, we meet once a week and we will have dinner.

Do you have family dinners on more nights than just one, though?

Every single night.

Okay.

Every single night. And the way we extend that is we put the food on the table. Okay. Like, if the food is right there with you at the table, you're just Gonna stay there longer.

We don't do that. And it's probably because, well, first of all, there's always games on the table and it'd be hard to squeeze the games in the food. Plus, for me, it's like, it's a health thing. If you gotta stand up to get seconds, you'll think more mindfully about just plating more food onto your plate. So ours is on the island in the kitchen counter, and you just kind of gotta stand up and go over to the kitchen counter if you're. If you want to play it up and get seconds. But any very, very small detail. But go ahead.

For some reason, with our group, it would be in reverse. Like, I'd put it on the counter, and as soon as they're done, the meal's over for some reason and everybody takes off. So I just kind of hooked into that thinking, like, yeah, this is a little bit extra work. We got to put everything on the table. But when I did that, I noticed we all sat there longer talking. I don't know how to explain of why, but that's what would happen. So that's intentional. We put all the food on the table, so we stay there for longer. And then when we're done, we know that once we do cleanup, we're going to convene for a family meeting or some kind of experience we're going to have together. And a lot of times we end up having a council. It's like a talking circle type of format where we're talking about big matters. Maybe we don't always agree on this. And we're learning how to communicate with each other as they get older. We're bringing in more subjects that hopefully through practice, we can get more mileage out of our attention span with each other. And we're counseling about different really important topics.

And I would say river and Forest have learned that in that context at our family home evening that we do once a week. It is a safe space. They know they can go there and bring up up more sensitive topics that maybe they would feel more hesitation to bring up at a different time. So over time, right, Ben? They've learned to trust that space and build a relationship with it where more can come out sometimes if there's difficulties, oftentimes strong emotions will come up at that time. If there's sadness or anger, sometimes that'll come up also if there's something to celebrate. They love bringing their wins to family home evening. I mean, I really got to give it to you, Janine, because you've really held the vision on that since the boys were little. I didn't have this growing up, but you guys did in your family of origin. And I still remember all the stories you would tell from your family. And so, yeah, Janine brought this in really early and has really stuck to it. And it's, gosh, through the years it's just proved to be just a really simple. Right. But really powerful, really impactful routine for our family.

Yeah, we always have somebody open it up. It's kind of funny and simple, but we have somebody say, okay, welcome. It is like a funny formal thing. But yeah, I ask our sons to open it up so they'll say welcome everybody in their unique way. And then we share gratitude. And then Tim will always bring us to intention setting. And the question is, how are you going to conduct yourself and how are you going to bring yourself to this? That's going to contribute to positivity. And also so that we end on a good note, so we all each say, what's our commitment? And then, you know, we have some announcements and whatnot. But then we get into the heart of something usually pretty meaty that we're counseling about.

And there's also fun and games and awesome yummy snacks and desserts and all kinds of good stuff. And Janine, you're also just expert at bringing that element to it as well.

I have a couple more questions for you. Beyond the weekly rituals and things like the annual ancestor suppers and the rites of passage, one of the ritual that kind of caught my attention, that I think is kind of unique is the celebration of seasons. I think if you asked most young men and women walking around these days, they probably wouldn't know when or what the fall equinox is or like the winter solstice. Tell me about the seasonal rituals, though, and how you've woven those in.

My favorite really is when we go racing in the fall. Racing, ricing. Yeah. So we're going out to forage for wild rice. We take our canoe out, we go to this lake. Can't tell you what it is. It's a top secret location.

But that's usually on the fall equinox, isn't it?

Yeah.

And it's usually on the fall equinox, literally that day, and we go out and we gather rice in the canoe. And it started with four of us. And I have to say it hasn't always been all four of us on that day because when you gather rice, it's actually incredibly itchy. And so sometimes there's a few People who will, like, scoot out and they're like, I'm kind of busy that day. But we always come back. And often we make a fire and we cook the wild rice after we process it, and then we're eating it throughout the year, too. That's what marks the fall equinox for me.

And for those who go, you know, that's one example. Janine and I actually got married on the summer solstice. So June 21, our wedding anniversary, is actually on one of the solstices that helps. Winter solstice is always a big one, since the boys were little. And this was a pretty countercultural move. I remember especially early on, like, oh, my gosh. Cause I was raised with Christmas and New Year's and the whole thing. But we really have attempted to bring more meaning back to these things. You know, that Christmas is more than just presents or Thanksgiving is more than just a turkey. Like, what's the meaning here? What is this all about? How can we bring a richness of culture to these experiences? So we have a whole ritual around the winter solstice and going out together and sharing reflections and acknowledging. Janine always leads a beautiful candlelight ceremony. We have all the lights off, so we're really with darkness. And then you have a chance to be with your candle and set an intention for the year. But it's taking time and pausing and slowing down and acknowledging these changes, right? Like, man, when it's winter solstice. We just went through that one, right, A couple months ago. And it's like a 16 hours of darkness and 8 hours of light. And you really get into that. There's a silence in there. There's a pause, a deeper pause. We can almost feel the earth standing still for a moment. And in that is this incredible amount of rest. And oftentimes traditional wisdom would tell us that the veil between worlds thins during this time. So oftentimes, like strong dreams will come through, or again, odd synchronicities will pop up. Maybe not so coincidentally, but at each of the four seasons, we do the two equinoxes and the two solstices. We do something as a family to mark those, and it helps locate us, right on an annual basis. Where am I at? And how is the season externally reflected inside of me? What's the quietness I'm going into? It gives permission to slow down and pause. In a culture that is obsessed with doing and accomplishing, or in the height of the summer, when it's 16 hours of light and eight hours of days, it Gives us permission to really express and celebrate fully. And just. It's summer. I mean, just go for it all the way. And then those transition times with the equinoxes. So, yeah, that's been a big one.

Too, by the way, for people listening in who have no clue about equinoxes and solstices. Basically there's four of them, like in mid March. The day and night are of equal length, and that's the spring or the vernal equinox is what that's called. Then there's the summer, the longest day of the year, usually in June. I know that one because it's close to my wife's birthday. And then there's another day and night of equal length in the autumn. That's the autumn equinox. And then the winter is the shortest day of the year. We also, like in our house, we try to give some recognition to another way to split up the year, which for us being Reformed Protestant Christians, we've got Advent and Epiphany and Lent and Easter and. And so there are seasons of a church calendar as well. There are many ways to split up a year, have comings and goings during the year, but yet again, a small, subtle shift in the way that we parent. From parenting through nature immersion, through parenting with rituals and traditions and rites of passages, through parenting with honoring of the elders, through parenting with seasonal ceremonies or religious ceremonies. I just think that it's kind of one of those posts probably like, I don't know, post reformational, scientific, logical, materialistic era type of consequences that we just don't seem to have that type of reverent observation of the comings and goings of human life and the planet woven into a child's upbringing. But I think it's such an important thing. I think it really helps to break up a year. That seems like a really trite way to put it, but it just gives, I think, especially a young human being and this idea of tradition, something firm and something reliable that they can lean upon. Almost like the safety of predictability. Not in a we don't ever want our kids to go out and do dangerous things type of way, but more in a way that allows them to know when it is, what season it is, what time it is, what's coming next, what are they preparing for, what have they learned from previous ceremonies? And I just think it's a fantastic way to grow, not only as a kid, but to continue those type of traditions as you become an adult, you know?

Absolutely. And I just want to add to that, Ben. So 100% agree with you on all that. And it gives them an opportunity to notice those same changes occurring inside themselves. And it gives them permission to be with the changes, the evolutions, the transformations that they too are, that we all are undergoing. Right. So there's that mirror effect, which is a subtle thing, but over time, when kids are surrounded by that and given permission, they're more well adjusted, they have better nervous system regulation, they're healthier in mind, body, heart and spirit.

Yeah, yeah. I think that a lot of people are probably listening and they're like birding, going out in canoes for wild rice, teaching your kids using weeds and mushrooms. That's weird. Your kids are going to be weird. They're going to get out in the real world, bro, and have a total shocking moment of realization when they're trying to navigate through the crazy complex world of AI and VR and GPT and almost like this digital existence or this more complicated existence that a lot of human beings almost have to prepare for. Now, do you ever get concerned or do you ever think about, gosh, what are kids gonna like, do or be when they grow up, so to speak? Are they just gonna be like little, you know, are they gonna go win, I don't know, alone or naked and afraid and just live off the winnings of conquering a bunch of wilderness TV shows?

Yeah, we've watched a few of those. Those are fun for sure. I definitely feel concerned at times, not gonna pretend like I don't. I think that we are living in a world now that is very different than 30, 40 years ago when I was young like that, you know, like a kid or a teenager and they're entering a world we maybe can't even fully comprehend and we're just getting it started. So when I think about that, we're like on the bell curve of where we're just getting going on the digital world and technology. I do see though that with our two kids, they're interested in that too.

Oh yeah.

Like they want to learn how to navigate it. I mean, one of our sons is trying to build his own channel online and present content on birding and hunting and being outside in the wilderness. And I found a tutor for him because he does better when I'm not his teacher in schooling, 100%. And she sat down with him and he crafted a vision statement for himself and he said, Our 16 year old son, he said, yeah, I want to create online content for people so that it will inspire them to go out into nature and see Birds. I don't know how long it'll take him to be fully successful and what his measure of success is for that he would define as his measure of success. But he's on that journey of learning how to navigate through this world. And I think sometimes it can be scary for him, but he is trying to figure that out. And that's awesome. When he crafted that vision statement, I realized, okay, he has had a foundation, and he is trying to figure out how to move through the modern world still.

And that's really the spirit behind it, Ben, is our philosophy really, is to support them, to walk in two worlds. You know, that there is this older world of nature that is still right here, right at our back door, and there is this modern world. And of course, they're gonna have to face that. Of course, it's still the year 2023. Like, there's no getting out of that, nor do I suggest that anyone should try. But there's something important and valuable about having this foundational element of deep nature connection in place that supports whole human development, so that when they do interface with the greater world and technology and all of that stuff, that they're going to have a chance. I mean, that's the basic philosophy here that we're operating behind, is this is valuable for whole human development. And we've seen that time and time again. Parents like yourself and hundreds and hundreds, thousands, honestly, of others whose kids come to our programs and they tell us, oh, my God, this is like medicine for my soul. My kid comes back so much healthier and happier and fully alive and excited, and their depression and anxiety is down. That's a known phenomenon. These are actually measurable phenomenon that exist. And so what we've said is, okay, we've put a lot of our chips in on this Nature Connection piece. Clearly, it is paying off. And. And it's interesting. I mean, river is, I think, as the oldest, he's really kind of followed in our footsteps More. Is following in our footsteps More. He's very passionate birder and hunter, and he's got two YouTube channels that he's working on and creating content. And Forrest, he's much more socially oriented. So he actually started at our local charter school this year, seventh grade.

He wanted to try that out.

Yeah, he wanted to try that out because he was saying, hey, I need more social interactions. And so now he's navigating all of that. And that was a big piece. It was big for Janine and I both to let go. It was hard, but we did. And he is turning into this amazing human being who's finding his values. He's got such a big heart. He moves and kind of operates in those social circles a lot more than Rivers. So, yeah, is there a risk? Yeah, but gosh, I mean, what's the opposite? Like, we raise them with technology from birth. Is there a risk there? Absolutely. And would I be more worried if I had done that? Heck, yeah.

Yeah. I have the same feelings about river and Terran. You know, for example, they have a cooking channel, they have a cooking podcast, they have a social media account for running that. They're starting to design a game company now, shout out to Fried Pickle Games. And so they're taking a lot of the stuff that we do. We cook, cook, we eat, we enjoy nature, we play pickleball. We have these family games. And they are using some amount of digital communication to bring others into that joy that they've discovered. And I think that's the perfect way to use the digital world is the icing on the cake to a largely analog existence. Now, I know that we didn't talk a lot about this during our discussion over the past hour, but for those of you who are curious and who want to learn more about Tim and Janine's approach, of course it's heavily detailed in the boundless parenting book shameless plug@boundlessparentingbook.com, but then also these programs that they run, people I have, friends, folks I know, they fly in from all over the country to attend one of these Twin Eagles Wilderness School wilderness survival camps, a rite of passage or vision quests or deep nature immersions or summer camps or spring camps or even winter camps where they build snow tunnels. And it's an amazing time. And I would encourage any of you who haven't yet visited their website, the Twin Eagles Wilderness School website, to check out what it is they're doing and to get involved. Or even though you may have to do a little bit of vetting, look up up a similar wilderness school or nature immersion school in your area if you can't get out to North Idaho or Spokane. Even though I'll of course vouch for Tim, there are other great places, like Boulder has the boss school, and there's some Tom Brown schools in the Northeast. And there's all sorts of ways that you can get your kids involved with something like this. Another person you might want to look into, who I'll be interviewing later on, is Katie Bowman. She's got a lot of good writings and a great book I was recently reading on raising a child child in the wild or at least introducing more wilderness immersion into their upbringing, all the way down to what kind of clothes you give them so they can climb trees better. And so check out Tim and Janine's twin eagles Wilderness School. I'll link to that in the shownotes@bengreenfieldlife.com Corcorans or you can go to twineagles.org and read their chapter in the book. If this really got you thinking about rites of ceremony, about rites of passage, about traditions and rituals, then we've really only scratched the surface of what's detailed in the book. So be sure to check that out. Tim and Janine, I'm so grateful to know you as friends and so grateful that you were able to come on and share some of your parenting wisdom from a very unique perspective with us.

Thank you so much, Ben. We really appreciate this connection with you and your family and Jessa and River and Taryn and yeah, really grateful for this opportunity.

Thank you, Ben.

Awesome. I'm super happy we're able to record this. And again, for those of you listening in BenGreenfieldLife.com Corcorans until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Tim and Janine Corcoran signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an amazing week. All right, you may have heard the rumblings about this event as actually happening, so get out your calendar March 10th through the 12th. March 10th through the 12th, 2023. Of course, I am doing a big event in the hotspot of Sedona, Arizona. If you haven't been to Sedona, it's amazing. The hiking is amazing, the food is amazing, the energy is amazing. And my friend, two time former podcast guest and an amazing expert in breath, work and self discovery in movement and all the cool things that happen as far as like body, mind, spirit connection. Down there in Sedona is putting on an event, her grand opening event at this place called Shine in Sedona. And I'm going to be there giving a keynote talk, teaching you all about breath, work and biohacking. But that's not all. She has so many experts coming in. We have a freaking cacao ceremony. If you've never done a cacao ceremony, it's drinking really good chocolate in a very ceremonial way. You're gonna love it. They got mind body reset sessions using quantum energetic technologies, infrared rays, negative ion therapy crystals, these special mats that you lay on as you do special forms of breath work. They've got a heart expansion coaching session where you actually learn, using neurofeedback technology, how to guide and modulate your nervous system. The list goes on and on, but what's cool is there's even a VIP dinner with me. I'm bringing my entire family to Sedona and we are going to cook you a Greenfield style home dinner right at a private location. It's a VIP part of this experience. Not only that, but my sister is going to be playing live music there, so the whole thing's just going to be amazing. Anyway, if you want to get in, we're only opening up the dinner to 25 guests and shine has limited space, so tickets are very limited for this. They're going to go fast. And again, it's coming up quick March 10th through the 12th. You can fly into Phoenix if you need to get to the area. If you're already in Phoenix or the Sedona area, you know where you're going. So here's the address. BenGreenfieldLife.com/Shinesedona that's BenGreenfieldLife.com/shine Sedona. You can get in, you can grab your ticket. There's different ticket levels. There's the tickets for the VIP dinner experience. You can even attend virtually at a fraction of the cost if you can't make it there live. Even though there's a lot of cool things happening. Of course, if you are there live. So one more time. BenGreenfieldLife.comForward/Shinesedona if you don't know how to spell Sedona, just go Google that. Shine Sedona. I hope to see you there. More than ever these days. People like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. If you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much.

Means a lot.